The Art of Utility and the Utility of Art

 It seems I can't manage to post more often than every two-to-three weeks these days; I'd rather be making!  And so it's been since I last wrote for you, Gentle Readers.  Life remains good, though there are days when the Sorrowful Demons try to nibble at the edges of my equilibrium, and sometimes succeed.  Often a walk or a session with my online Essentrics Classical Stretch class will break the ennui, and I feel more like myself again.

On the Art Front, "Art in the Park" opened yesterday in Revelstoke, B.C.  It's at the Revelstoke Visual Arts Centre, and will be there through April 2.  Earlier this week I received a series of photos from Meghan Porath, the Director at the Centre, showing how they'd hung my pieces -- from the ceiling!!  This took me quite by surprise and gave me a real thrill:

(L) to (R) suspended in the centre:
"Rails & Ruins", "Pretty Poison", "Meadow Impressions"
and "Fallen Log"

Because of the perspective in the photo, the "Meadow" piece looks a great deal smaller than it is -- but that's only because it's hung farther back!  Similarly, "Pretty Poison" appears larger, but that's just the angle at which it's hung.  The pillars under each piece carry my labels about each one in turn, plus the front one has my Artist's Statement about my Residency Experience (I think!)

Once my pieces were shipped to B.C., I turned my attention to what needs to be done to prepare for the first in-person Encore! Lacombe Art Show & Sale since 2019.  I've submitted all my info to the coordinator, Christina, including an outline of my Artist's Talk, which will take place at 2 p.m. on each afternoon of the show -- April 14 and 15.  I've examined my pieces, finished making hanging sleeves for the newer ones, and now have some hand-sewing on those to do.  I also will need a few dowels for hanging and will pick those up at the hardware store in the next couple of weeks, along with some more eye hooks.  

Yesterday I had a phone interview with Mark Weber of the Lacombe Express weekly newspaper; I expect the article will come out next week.  One of the first questions he asked me was why I make art (a common question, as y'all probably know!)  My main reason is this: it gets me out of my head!  

That is, it helps me express myself: what's on my mind and in my heart.  It could be through a landscape piece; it could be through an abstract one.  I don't make a great many political or social statements in my work, but sometimes the message is hidden, as it is in "Back to the Garden" from 2013, which was inspired by lyrics from Joni Mitchell's song, "Woodstock": 

Back to the Garden (c) 2013
15" x 15"
Hand-dyed whole cloth, machine quilted,
hand embroidered and beaded

One of my newer pieces (made in 2020 during the COVID pandemic shut-down) is "Order Out of Chaos (or Chaos Can Be Colourful)": 

Order Out of Chaos (aka Chaos
Can be Beautiful) (c) 2020-2021
Assorted commercial and self-dyed
cottons, machine pieced and quilted

This one will be at the Lacombe Show next month, along with some others that aren't statement-oriented.

And I've an idea floating around in my brain right now that may present as a landscape, but still make a statement.  These ideas often take a very long time to come out into the world, so stay tuned!

In addition, of course, I'm still working on comfort quilts.  The "Keep it Out of the Landfill Project" continues apace!

Some weeks ago now I used up all but the few charm squares I own by putting them into a crib quilt:

Pattern: "Chandelier"
a PDF from Vanessa Goertzen

I've had the pattern for a while -- I'm pretty sure it's a freebie, but it was originally published in Ms. Goertzen's book Charm School: 18 Quilts from 5" Squares.  The version I made is considerably smaller than the suggested 60" x 60" size; it's 37" by 57" and that's largely due to the borders!  I had 4" squares, and only a certain number of them went together well enough to produce anything.  In the end, I discovered that, given the horizontal layout of my design wall, I'd laid the blocks out so the "chandlier drops" look more like crystals hanging from an old-fashioned lamp (maybe something from Tiffany) than long droplets hanging from a ceiling-mounted chandelier! Ah well; whatever baby ends up with it won't mind, I'm sure! 😆

In my last post I mentioned that I'd started Bonnie Hunter's "Triple Treat" to use up my 1 1/2" squares and other scraps.  Each block is a 6 1/2" unit, and you need four units to make a full quilt block (12" finished).  I now have over 40 units made -- but there are more to come, as 40 units makes only 10 blocks, and that's not going to get me a throw-sized quilt.

I've laid finished units out on a recycled Styrofoam tray, with the dominant (dark) corners stacked according to their print.  

More often than not there are neutral squared from corner to corner in the centre, but not always.  I went through all the 1 1/2" squares I had, and have cut more from bits and bobs, along with the squares and rectangles needed for the "L"-shaped corner sections.  I decided as I went along, that these all have to have contrasting corners in browns, so that there will be some unity.  On another tray, I've started to collect a different palette -- reds/blues/purples with white or off-white as neutrals.  

And still the scraps keep piling up!  I have bags of "bricks" in light and darker fabrics, 1 1/2" x 2 1/2", using Bonnie's Scrap User's System, and have been longing to find a way to use such small pieces.  Enter Bonnie to save the day!  I found a "Butter Churn" block she's designed in the current (!) March/April issue of "Quiltmaker" magazine.  Ta-DA!  That one will be come a leader-ender project for "Triple Treat", which I used as a leader-ender-project while working on "Rhododendron Trail"...and so it goes!

At the same time, I've returned to assembling units for a postage stamp top which I think I want to make in sections to fit windows as curtains, in the style of Kate Jackson of the Last Homely House, to whit:

I've measured the windows that I want to cover, and well recognize that I've a long way to go before I get there..."many miles before I sleep", as Robert Frost said long ago.

No matter.  It's an easy project, fun to do, and eventually the blocks will add up into larger pieces.  And yes -- keep the fabric out of the landfill -- at least for now!

It seems to be all about "stash-busting" this year in the Knitting World too.  Certainly, I've been very aware of it, and feeling a bit guilty that my knitting mojo has been a bit low.  The baby socks, of course, have gone to their destination -- and now I've been commissioned by a good friend to make her 2 pair of socks, just like ones I made for her a decade ago that are finally wearing out.  I started the first pair about 3 weeks ago and am well down the foot of the second sock.  Here's what the first looks like, made from yarn in stash in a colour that my friend happens to favour:

Pattern: "Simplicity"
Designer: Janel Laidman
Yarn: a "One Shot" from Gathering Yarn,
superwash wool and nylon.

The second pair will be in Paton's North America's "Cotton Stretch Socks" so they can be worn even in warmer weather, if desired.

And inspired by a newly-arranged casual MAL (Make-Along) set up by Selma of the Little Big Knits Podcast -- under the title of "Scrappy Stashy MAL" on Ravelry (and also on Instagram, I think, but I never go there!), I'm dipping back into my other knitting WIPs that fit the bill -- like the hats I've been making, and the Sock Knitter's Sweater...and now, after far too long despairing of my sad and sorry dishcloth collection, I've dug out the cotton yarn in my stash and am making a new batch of Grandma Black's Dishcloths!  The only modification I'm making to the pattern is to knit to 49 stitches before I decrease, as I like my cloths a bit larger than suggested in the pattern.  I work on these when I'm in bed, reading (with an audio book or a book on my bookstand), as they are mindless and soothing projects!

And yes, there is still stitching!  I've taken to working on a red sampler on Thursdays -- in the manner of Sarah from Sarah's Stitch Spot flosstube -- and so am closing in on a finish with my "Ruth Gibb" sampler, started almost a year ago on Mother's Day, to honour my mother Ruth and her mother, Margaret Gibb.

My Sunday Stitch is now the "Keziah Campbell" sampler that my friends Mary D. and Sha gave me for my birthday last year.  I'm still on the border, but I'm almost finished with it.  It's on 40-count linen, so a bit slower going than other counts.  It's a Scottish-style sampler, and I'm going to personalize it -- i.e., use initials from my family -- when I finally get to the alphabets and motifs!

I've finished a Lizzie Kate design for a friend who's having a birthday soon -- but I need to fully finish it...

And I'm making good progress on the "Dragons" piece for my son's June birthday:

Pattern: "Here Be Dragons"
Designer: Modern Folk Embroidery
Fabric: 28-count white Lugana from stash
Floss: "Gomez" from Roxy Floss Co.

Since that photo was taken earlier this week, I've finished that top wide border and begun to go down the side -- about 3" of that done now.

And on that note...it's time to return to any and all of the above -- before the day gets away from me completely!

It's been snowing lightly all day thus far, and it's forecast to continue on and off through tomorrow, so I've got no excuse to waste the wonderful indoor hours I've been given.  It's time to return to colour and creativity in the Art of Utility...practicing the Utility that is Art.

I'll leave you -- as I regularly do! -- with a link to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.  This week she's talking about 'bad sewing habits'.  Do you have any?  I know I do, but I'm not ready to 'fess up just yet! LOL! 😆

Have a great weekend -- safe, dry, cozy, cool, with those you love, doing what you love.

'Til next time...XXXOOO

It's a Colourful Life!

 This month is all about colour!  Gone (most of the time) are the grey days of February, and spring is definitely in the air!  

This week I've found two bits of greenery poking through the leaf mulch on my garden beds, and was taken completely by surprise by a sprout on a plant I'd been over-wintering and had pretty much given up for dead!  I don't even remember its name -- I bought it at the Wal-Mart in Sylvan Lake late last spring, enticed by its glorious pink blossoms.  

Eventually the blossoms died and it took the rest of the summer off, producing a few more blooms in the early fall.  I decided to see if it would last the winter and brought it in to my sunny back room (south-facing).  Eventually the leaves dried up and fell off, but I kept watering, having no clue if it would work...but it has!

By the end of the weekend, with temps forecast as high as 8-9 C (high forties Fahrenheit), I'll have planted my seed pots to get a head start on a couple of veggies -- zucchini and broccoli.  (I still have some brussels sprouts seeds from last year but they're slow-growing and were attacked by those darned cabbage worms/butterflies -- so all I got was chewed leaves.  In the fall the deer ate those, and I didn't begrudge them!)

Aside from greenery -- and potential greenery -- I've been enjoying colour elsewhere in the house too.  

Online I've been enjoying this year's SAQA Seminar* which is all about colour. The video interviews have been very interesting, and I've played around with a couple of the exercises, and had fun with the colour quizzes, which have engendered much conversation in the SAQA Members Only Facebook group.  

*These Seminars have been an annual event -- usually in the fall or winter months -- free as part of a SAQA membership.

Of course, I continue to work with colour.  The "Traffic Jam" top is now finished, sandwiched and pin-basted -- ready to be quilted.  Here's the top out on my back stoop before sandwiching; it measures about 57" square:

"Traffic Jam" designed by Pat Sloan

I plan to quilt it fairly simply, with wide cross-hatching, and hope to get it quilted, bound and washed within a week or so, as I want to send it to an elderly soul I know in need of a wee bit of comfort following the loss of her husband a few weeks back.

Meanwhile, "Grassy Creek" is in the slow-and-steady assembly phase...with a couple of blocks and some sashing up on my design wall. 

I'm finding it a challenge because -- as you might be able to tell from the photo -- the edges of the blocks appear to "run into" the sashing, and it's hard to find where one leaves off and the other begins.  Because of my tendency to get units turned around, I have to take my time, checking and double-checking as I go!

For play-time, I've been planning a few new art pieces (nothing to reveal yet; it's all in my head thus far), while playing with crumbs and strings.  I've a stack of 5 1/2" blocks composed of these scraps, all in blues, plus a growing stack of the same in the ever-popular "whatever the heck colour I have" variety.  

And I've signed up to take yet another Quilt Freedom Workshop from Joe (the Quilter) Cunningham.  This Saturday morning I'll be studying "String Theory" with Joe and his friend, quilt collector and historian, Julie Silber.  

To prepare for the class, and to make sure I had at least a few inches of space on my sewing table, I've decided I have to deal with THIS:

So...this morning I began to sort the longer strings by colour, putting them on hangers.  I began with the greens and greys, left from making the string-pieced sashing for "Grassy Creek" and followed that with purples, just because they happened to be there:

Next up will be reds and blues.  This sorting, though, won't include the Carefully Curated Collection of Strings in Assorted Colours that are stored below my ironing board...

(Pay no attention to the piles of fabric or the basketful on the floor...😉)

There's still knitting, of course.  My March "Socks from Stash" have been languishing in favour of finishing the comfort wrap for my friend with cancer.  I'm on the last of five skeins of the yarn, an alpaca/silk blend, and it too needs to be finished and in the mail soon!

Pattern: Simple Comforts Wrap
Designer: LIsa Santoni Cromar
Yarn: Diamond Luxury Collection "Tafi"

I'm still working (a bit) on the baby sweater for an expected cousin Back East (no news yet), and have offered to make socks for yet another baby boy (3 weeks old yesterday)...as well as a little guy who's now 4 years old, the son of a couple of bit Edmonton Oilers fans, who himself is gearing up to play hockey...

Left: "Oilers" colour yarn from "Hat Trick Yarns",
exclusive to River City Yarns, Edmonton;
Right: Schoeller & Stahl's Fortissima Socka Colori
in colour #9096 - "Blau Wei"

And then there's the impetus to dig out yet another UFO -- this one, barely started before it was set aside -- inspired by Kate Jackson's recent Last Homely House video over on YouTube, in which she, too, is sifting and sorting fabric and yarn scraps, with a view to (eventually) clearing it out...

Mitred Throw
Pattern: "Knitted Patchwork Recipe"
Designer: Martine Ellis

There are several patterns for this sort of thing on Ravelry; I just happened to use this one, but have also used this resource from Georgie Nicolson, as I really appreciated the clear layout photo.  I'm making mine in sock yarn left-overs, using 3 mm needles (somewhere between a US 2 and US 3).  Like Kate, I prefer to use double-pointed needles for these squares, especially with this weight of yarn and working with only 32 stitches at any given time.  You can use any weight of yarn, of course, and adjust your needles accordingly. 😊

Anyway, I dug it out and started again...and will pick it up and put it down as the mood strikes.  Given it's in fingering-weight yarn, it will be a never-ending project...and that's just fine!

Tomorrow will be filled with the Quilt Freedom workshop, so I'd best get a move on and get the rest of that Pile o' Strings and Scraps taken care of.  It'll give me a better idea of what I've got to work with -- and more space in which to do it!

I'll leave you to take up your own colourful projects.  If you need more inspiration, I'm linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday.  This week, her own colourful journey continues as she studies with the wonderful Rosalie Dace.  Have a great weekend!

What was That About Spring?

The above photo isn't from today -- or even this year (the tall birch stump beside the garage in the background is gone now) -- but it might as well be!  As forecast, the snow began early this a.m. and is ongoing.  It paused long enough -- well, lightened up long enough -- for my neighbour to satisfy his urge to clear it from his deck and some of his walkways, with his big snow-blower (in fact, he and his wife are still out there as I type!) -- but it's full on snowing again now and isn't destined to stop for another two or three hours.  And it's blowing. 

A fellow with a sidewalk sized vehicle with a blade on the front has been by at least three times, ostensibly clearing the public sidewalk in front of our houses, but all that's happened is that it's filled up again.

What's a gal with a girly snowblower and an aversion to blowing snow supposed to do?  Stay inside and create, of course!

Let me begin with what I've worked on up to today...

Aside from knitting on my Millie sweater, in which I'm making my way down the body to the point where I can begin the finishing (3" - 4" deep) ribbing, I spent last weekend working with the "mystery materials" I showed you in my last post:

Materials: indigo-dipped silk scarf, cut into 1 1/2" strips,
piece of recycled cotton pillow case
 -- sea green, over-dyed with cobalt blue MX dye.

Inspirational photo by Gina Blank
-- a section of Riel House, Manitoba

Silk strips sewn together in random order;
tracing of the shuttered window, auditioning position

Strips quilted; "window" fused to top.

Et voila!
Shuttered: Riel House, Manitoba - (C) 2020
Highlighted with Pitt pen,
coloured pencil and mechanical pencil,
and wrapped around 12" x 9" stretched canvas
-- awaiting framing.

By Monday I was ready to rest my brain a bit, so I took out several small 'tops' I'd created in some colour studies in a Craftsy class a few years ago.  I'd put borders on them a few months ago, figuring I'd make table toppers for the Bazaar at our church last November.  Well, that didn't happen.  But...they are coming to life now as little cuddle blankets or car seat blankets or whatever for a new moms-and-babes program in Lacombe.  I decided it would be enjoyable to quilt them by hand, using a 'big stitch' (1/8" or a bit larger) and #12 perle cotton. 

There are four in all, measuring up at about 29" x 30" or 30" square.  The first one is finished.  The blue border has more green in it -- but I couldn't get it to show on camera.  That said, it suits the blues in the squares.

Lazily lying on the top of my easy chair...

A detail of my 'big stitch' hand-quilting

The second one has been quilted, and I'm ready to sew on the binding on two of the sides.  I do what I've heard referred to as an "Amish binding" -- straight of grain; first two sides sewn edge to edge, then hemmed to the back; next, the second two are cut a bit longer so that when you hem them down on the back, the ends are folded in for a neat finish.  I'm not sure it's Amish (I can't find proof) but it works for me.  I find mitred corners clumsy to do and this method is less bulky in the corners than sewing all the bindings on a the same time and then trying to fold in the corners (which is what I used to do).

Today...well I was in the mood for Something Completely Different. 

One of my favourite video podcasts on YouTube is Kate's Last Homely House.  Kate is a knitter, spinner, quilter, potter and gardener who lives in a "cottage" on a farmstead in Northumberland, UK.  She's a few years younger than I, with grown children, four cats, a goose and several hens.  Something about her strikes such a chord in me...and I love to hear her "witter on", as she calls it.  She sometimes does tutorials, and one of them really caught my attention several months ago (maybe even a year).  For those of you who want the whole thing for what I'm about to share, click HERE.

Now, those of you who know me, know that I'm not particularly partial to paper arts -- even though I've altered one book and created an artist's sketchbook/journal or two. 

But that said, I absolutely love stationery and fine note paper and cards.  I don't care to make them, but I enjoy receiving them, and using good stationery for real hand-written correspondence.  Well, then.  Kate shared her idea for creating a sort of album in which to store favourite cards one had received.  It uses cardboard -- best from recycled cereal boxes -- decorative paper, glue and string or ribbon or even elastic to hold the cards in place in the album covers.

My cereal box, opened out and trimmed
of the flaps.

My cover trimmed to fit the selected cards,
prepared with its "binding",
and lined with decorative paper.
(I have a very limited selection!)

Cards fastened inside
with #8 perle cotton; view of
finished "album" from the outside.

Inside view.

The card with the two kitties was sent me by my friend Maggi Birchenough of the U.K., whom I met when we were both SAQA Reps at the Portland conference in 2015.  She died a bit more than a year later, but in that time we became fast friends.  I miss her still.

I leave you now, Gentle Readers, to figure out what to make for my supper...and to resume knitting on that Millie!  I want to wear it at the SAQA Conference in Toronto in a few weeks, and it's not going to finish itself!

Linking this to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday -- and wishing you a cozy rest of the weekend!  (Think of me tomorrow, when the storm has passed and I'm shovelling out! 😉)